Elliot Umbarger is about to graduate from Duke University with a master's degree in education, to begin his career as a teacher this fall. He already had a job offer in hand to teach in Durham Public Schools, when he and his classmates heard that state lawmakers were proposing big raises for first year teachers.
"In the short term, we're all like, this is kind of nice, because I'm going to have a little more money off the bat to kind of get me on my feet and get me going," Umbarger said.
Republican lawmakers say their aim is that this will make North Carolina's starting salaries the highest in the Southeast. The new salary schedule would raise starting pay for first year teachers by $7,000. In most districts, that would put a first year teacher's pay at $50,000 or more, with locally-funded salary supplements included in that number.
The raises for veteran teachers are less than half that. Umbarger is especially aware of what veteran teachers make because his mom has taught in North Carolina for decades.
"She was pointing out how similar in pay a beginning teacher and a 30-year teacher are according to this new schedule," he said.
Under this pay plan, the difference between the salary for someone with his mom's experience and a new teacher is only $11,000 in base pay that comes from the state.
Most counties pitch in extra to fund teacher salary supplements, and some pitch in a lot to honor teachers' master's degrees and sometimes their experience, too. If you compare Elliot's starting pay in Durham, to a 30-year teacher in a rural county, the difference could be even less than $10,000.
"When thinking about a career, finding that it's not that much of a difference between year one and year 30, so what's to keep me around past year, say like five?" Umbarger said.
Umbarger said he and his classmates at Duke's teaching college have taken notice, and many are considering teaching in North Carolina for just a few years rather than staying long term.
"It's not (whether to) stay in teaching long term. It's whether they stay in North Carolina," Umbarger said.
Veteran teachers say they're debating whether to stay to retirement, but their pension is a draw
Veteran teachers who've been in North Carolina classrooms for decades are also debating whether they should stay, according to Orange County teacher Michelle Reed.
The talk in the hallway, she said, is that teachers appreciate the raise, but they're concerned about the discrepancy between how the state is taking care of beginning teachers and "overlooking" veteran teachers.
"It feels like North Carolina doesn't want people to retire from the profession," Reed said.
Teaching is one of the few jobs that still offers a pension at retirement, and Reed said she recognizes that those retirement benefits are expensive for the state.
"It feels like they're trying to push us out before we earn those pensions," Reed said.
Reed said last year she was considering retiring early, but now she thinks she's going to stay to qualify for a full pension.
"Some of us, me included, are feeling like we want to stick it out to those 30 years, just to not let North Carolina keep our pension," Reed said.
NC's salary plateau for veteran teachers hasn't gone away
Kimberly Jones is also in the stick-it-out category. She's a recent North Carolina teacher of the year who is in her 20th year teaching in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. She said she was "super pumped" for beginning teachers to get this raise.
"It was wonderful because it actually felt like meaningful growth," Jones said. "And then your eyes continued down the salary schedule, and it quickly turned to disappointment that it was business as usual."
Once teachers hit 15 years of experience, they get locked in at the same salary for a decade. This salary plateau has become a mainstay of recent state budgets. While other teachers get an annual raise for experience, teachers in this range only get a raise when a new budget passes.
House Speaker Destin Hall told reporters he's aware of that concern.
"But, you know, that also assumes that we never do another raise," Hall said. "Typically every budget, this body gives raises at every level."
Teachers say in recent years, that raise has hardly been enough to pay for an extra tank of gas each month.
"I anticipate that schedule is not going to stay the same for eternity," Hall added. "As long as I'm here anyway, we're going to keep trying to work to get every level of that schedule raised at each budget that we do."
He said the House worked hard to boost pay for beginning teachers in this budget, making it the highest average raise for North Carolina teachers in more than 20 years.
"What we were hearing the most, especially from border counties, is that those beginning teachers could go to South Carolina or one of our other bordering states, get more money, and so they're losing those folks. So that was obviously a critical need," Hall said.
Jones said she had hoped this new budget would do more to keep veteran teachers from leaving, too.
"My big fear is that, in light of this budget, the states around us are going to step up their game as well, raise their pay and continue to pull that talent from the students in North Carolina who need and deserve it," said Jones. "Recruitment, without retention, is pouring water into a bucket with a hole in it. It's not sustainable."
For now, the teacher pay plan is nothing more than a preview. State lawmakers have yet to reach a budget deal. They anticipate releasing a full budget in June, and then they'll vote on it.
